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Just Want Some Opinions

I did a website for a family member. I saved all the HTML files in a folder on my HD and uploaded them. About 6 months later I downloaded the files to a new directory, did some modifications and then uploaded the changes. Now I have the old folder and the new folder both containing similar html files.

Is there any need to keep the old folder with files? I am just wondering if there is a reason to keep them that I am not thinking of, before I delete the old files.

I guess I really do not need to keep the current ones either since they are online, but I worry that if something goes wrong with the hosting I need them for backup. Keeping one set is not a big deal to me, but I don't want to hoard these files if I do not need to.

I'm a bit of a fanatic when it comes to keeping back-up files. I like having at least one copy of every significant revision I make to the sites I control so I have copies of old content as well as the underlying HTML, CSS, and software involved.

You always want to have at least one complete back-up of the live site in case the server crashes or if the site is hacked and you have to restore the site from your local storage. But no matter how much backing up you do, you want to devise a plan so that you can easily find your back-ups on your computer and so you don't lose track of which copy is the 'live' version and which are the back-ups.

anytime i have extra files or scripts i save them on my server in a folder called storage. just in case you need the code for something else save it all and it will save u time. and as you learn and get better update the scripts you keep.

I highly recommend you keep your older versions. As Rick said, "fanatic when it comes to keeping back-up files"... this is a good personal policy to keep and continue to develop. Just zip up the files and label it a particular version. Version control is helpful when you start debugging. It may not be necessary right now, but you'll need to know these concepts in the future as you get better and your designs/development becomes more complicated.

Keeping multiple old versions is a must, and need to be executable (not zipped). Why? Because sooner or later you will introduce a bug in your code that is not instantly obvious but may be serious in some circumstances. Being able to step back to before the error was introduced helps you to pin-point the change that caused it. Also, stepping back and re-coding from a stable version can be far more reliable that trying to fix broken code!